On The Shoulders Of Giants . . . 'The Church As A Servant Of The Class State' - August Bebel
This month, as part of our On the Shoulders of Giants series, and on the 112th anniversary of the death of August Bebel, we republish this extract from a longer speech entitled ‘The Social-Democracy and the Zentrum’, Bebel delivered at Bamberg on the 24th of September, 1902.
In this piece, ‘The Church as a Servant of the Class State’, Bebel contrasts the theological teachings of the Catholic Church in Germany with the historical record of the Church at those critical times when its teachings were put to the test.
The Church as a Servant of the Class State
August Bebel
24th September, 1902
August Bebel.
‘In his speech at Mannheim, Dr. Schadler asserted that the Church had broken the chains of slavery and made the worker a free man having equal rights with others. Every word he used represents an historical untruth.
The Church did not break the slavery system; on the other hand, it has always been admirable for its ability to adapt itself to the prevailing economic governmental conditions and has always stood on the side of those in power.
For has not slavery continued to maintain itself to the most recent days even in Christian countries? Was not the great War of Emancipation fought in North America only forty years ago, and did not the Church of both creeds stand in this struggle on the side of the slaveholders, and not on that of the emancipators?
In Catholic Brazil, slavery was abolished only fourteen years ago, not by the Church, but against the Church. Wherever slavery has been eliminated, it was as a result not of religious, but of economic causes.
Who was it that fought against serfdom in Germany? The Church? Any one who would maintain such a thing is a monstrous liar. Who was it that opposed the attached and serf-like peasants when at the end of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth century-and then later in the Great Peasant War of 1525 6-they rose against their ecclesiastical and secular masters, in order to shake off the yoke of serfdom and forced labor?
The whole clergy, including Luther and his followers, were on the side of the masters against the peasants, and aided in the bloody putting down of the movement. Particularly, the Bishops of Bamberg and Würzburg were ferocious in their opposition to the peasants and placed their strongholds at the disposal of the nobility in their struggle against the peasants.
And just as the Church in those days came out in favour of slavery, in favour of serfdom and in favour of forced peasant labor, so it to-day supports the continuance of the wage labor system of the capitalist order of economy.
The Church considers it to be its duty to make the workers willing tools of the state and of their employers. This is the true attitude assumed by the spokesmen of the Church in the present period of our historical evolution, and yet, some persons have the audacity to speak of the "great benefactions of the Church."
For example, the *Zentrum has been trying to organise the workers into trade unions for a number of years; but what is the Zentrum really accomplishing in this activity? It has introduced religion into the trade union movement; it has established specifically Christian trade unions and has sought to divide the workers according to their creed, although their interests are the same and have no connection with religion whatever.
Why does it not seek to bring about this condition among the employers, who unite against the aspirations of the workers without regard to religious creed? Yes, my dear yokel, that is another matter; the employers would not consent to any such operation; but the worker still permits himself to be led in leading strings; if the Zentrum should not succeed in its efforts, the worker might be infected with the devil of the Social-Democracy and acquire opinions not at all sympathetic to the gentlemen of the Zentrum.
The Kreuzzeitung has openly stated the reasons why the Christian organisations are desirable and must be supported by energetic means, by virtue of the commandment: Divide et impera ("Divide, in order that you may rule").
Divide the workers, split them, so as to 'Weaken them, and it will be all the easier to rule them. This is a perfectly frank expression of that which is behind the whole movement.
And the Catholic workers should put that in their pipes and smoke it. Herr Schadler also said that it was the desire of the Church to have the worker obtain wages sufficient for the support of his family; even the Pope has declared in an encyclical letter that the worker "has a rightful claim to just wages."
The only question is: What is just? What constitutes sufficient wages? Is it a wage of 1, 2 or 3, or 4 marks a day, or more? Neither Herr Schadler nor any one else will venture to give an answer to this question, for his answer would amount to a complete exposure.
They tell me that there is a great spinning mill here in Bamberg, employing about two thousand male and female workers, and I am informed that the wages of an adult male worker in this mill is from 1.40 to 1.50 marks per day. Would you call this "sufficient" wages? No, these are miserable starvation wages.
The fact that the owner of this factory has risen to the post of an honorary member in a Catholic Trade Union cannot alter this fact. What is the Church-which is so powerful here in Bamberg-doing to prevent the workers from being subjected to such starvation wages?
The Church is not interested in wages at all; the Church merely seeks to keep the workers contented. Now, we do not ask that the Church do anything for the workers; all we ask is that the Church leave to the workers their liberty of regulating their political and trade union affairs by themselves, as they consider to be their duty; let not the Church appoint itself to be our guardian.
But the Church, unfortunately, is very much interested in the workers, and this interest is due solely to the fact that the Church wishes to maintain the workers in a condition of slavish dependence on the employers. It is this which we are combating to the utmost. Herr Schadler also said that the Church had never deceived and exploited the workers, but that the Church never says to the workers-on the other hand-that things might be different if things should be turned topsy-turvy-lest you do not know it, I must inform you that Herr Schadler now means the Social-Democracy. This is very cheap talk.
If by his "turning things topsy-turvy" he means revolution, let me tell him that the Social-Democracy has not yet made any revolutions, while the bourgeoisie has several to its credit. The great English revolution, which ended with the beheading of Charles I in 1649; the great French Revolution of 1789-1795, in which Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had to place their heads on the block; the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848-1849, which even affected Germany, were bourgeois revolutions without exception. And yet, they were very beneficent revolutions, for without them we should never have been where we are to-day.’
* What Bebel refers to as the Zentrum is the Catholic German Centre Party, originally founded in 1870, which quickly went on to become the third largest party in the Reichstag.